All Those Wasted Hours

Thanks for the tags @madefortherain @igetje @barkingatthemooninsteadofwriting

Nooo idea if I'll ever post this, currently saved in a Google doc titled "self indulgent nonsense" so you know........ fanfic :)

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Sirius took no chances: two Apparitions from the shit hotel, a Disillusionment Charm, then a final jump into an alley three blocks from Remus' flat.

He scanned the passing crowd. Muggles, every one of them. Sirius could sense magic easily, and this street was blessedly devoid of it.

Just that morning, he’d received a Howler to the hotel. The owl had evidently swept in behind some unsuspecting bloke and proceeded to terrorize the desk clerk until the poor Muggle detached the letter and rang the jangly phone in Sirius' room.

He’d still been asleep. After much dragging of his feet and even more fruitless job-hunting, he’d finally been hired as a bouncer at a wizarding club in Shoreditch, so he found himself quickly becoming nocturnal.

The pay covered the day rate at the shit motel and not very much else. 

Sirius felt like he was sliding into a pit, the way down slicked with all the many failures, deficiencies, and bad decisions of his life. For the first time ever, wealth was no longer the fat seam of ore running under his feet, ready to be tapped for any frivolous reason. Money was now the foothold he couldn’t reach. It was scarce; it was something to strive for, to grasp at, to keep from crashing down.

He was very much running out of it.

His mother’s Howler delighted in reminding him.

“SIRIUS BLACK IT SHAMES ME TO HEAR OF YOU WORKING AT SOME DEGENERATE ESTABLISHMENT FOR DRUG-ADDLED MUDBLOODS. COME HOME THIS INSTANT AND WE CAN FORGIVE THIS LITTLE EPISODE. DOES IT PLEASE YOU TO HURT YOUR OWN MOTHER—“

He blasted the thing into charred shreds before it could go off about his father turning in his grave or Regulus raiding his room for the last scraps of designer clothes he’d left behind.

It wasn’t the contents of the Howler that rattled him. All his life he’d heard the same, more or less. It was the reminder: the Black family is watching.

That was why he'd kept moving, trading each miserable room for one slightly worse, until he'd ended up here: the likely haunted, certainly moldy basement room of a shit motel, the air damp and hot with repulsive life.

It had taken his mother's owls nearly two weeks to find him there. He couldn't imagine what lower rung of London's lodging houses he'd have to descend to next.

But just then, standing in the early-evening summer air, fragrant with blooming jasmine—the first pleasant thing he’d smelled all day—Sirius wasn’t thinking about his mother. Or his future. Or the dwindling balance of his bank account. 

He was thinking about dinner with Remus.

Their courtship to date had gone a bit less like Sirius had initially imagined. Admittedly, what he’d imagined—flying Remus to Paris on his motorbike for a ten course dinner, a private stroll through the Louvre after-hours and then slow, tender hours-long sex in a penthouse flat he’d buy for that express purpose—was all financially and logistically out of reach. Even just a night out at the pub would be more charming than what he’d managed: fucking in progressively dingier motels. 

They weren’t only fucking, of course. They’d done quite a lot of talking and an off-brand amount of cuddling—Sirius had never spent so much time simply holding someone—but still. The fear of his family trailing them or staking out Remus’ flat always won over those other fantasies. They could unravel Remus’ secrets. Sirius knew all their tricks. He’d invented most of them.

Nevertheless. Sirius knew he could do better. Remus deserved better.

So the dinner party was exactly what they needed. A chance to meet Tonks, of course, but more time with Remus’ friends and Teddy too. The Black Corporation was holding its annual retreat that weekend so the risk of any of his mother’s goons seeing them were low. Perhaps Remus would invite him to stay the night.

He was glad he’d twisted Remus’ arm about it. The man was entirely too self-conscious about his life, as if Sirius himself wasn’t quite literally squatting in a roach motel. 

Sirius gave the street one last skittish sweep. Nothing. No magic, no watchers, no sign that anyone had followed him. Satisfied at last, he climbed the steps and knocked on Remus' door.

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Very happy to finally be able to share my entry for @moonyfest !!

This was so so fun to write, and it was beyond delightful to get so many comments from people who enjoyed it :) Big thanks to everyone who read it, you seriously made my month. And a HUGE thank you to the mods of @moonyfest for putting on such a lovely fest

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Remus Lupin is thirty-five, unemployed, a werewolf, and now a new father to one very weepy baby boy. He needs money and he needs it fast.

Sirius Black is trying to stay in his family's good graces and gets assigned the task of hunting down the unknown father of his cousin's baby.

A very intriguing OnlyFans account puts them on a collision course.

OR